


Again

by sophieexists



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, M/M, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie centric, ghost stan uris, groundhog day thing?, i’m so insanely sorry for the amount of smiths references i made, lots of throwing up i am again so sorry, no ones dying bitch lets get u some fruit, stan uris loves his wife his friends and his birds, tw for everything in canon!!, yes sadly The Turtle is part of the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:29:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophieexists/pseuds/sophieexists
Summary: Ghost Stan glares at him, throwing a puzzle piece at his eye.“Ow, dude, what the fuck.”He gets hit with another piece. Light streams in from his window. Stan glares some more. He doesn’t vomit this time. “That’s not what I meant.”“How was I supposed to know? You and the fucking Turtle weren’t very clear.”“Don’t bring the Turtle into this,” Stan says. “You made a pact.”“I’m so sorry,” Richie says, his voice raising, and then he realizes he’s talking to a ghost and people don’t normally think that’s the best. He whispers with as much anger as he can, instead. “I didn't know if I was offending the fucking Turtle.”“It sounds stupid,” Stan says, blood staining his pants as he tucks his hands in his pockets. “But the Turtle is your friend.”Richie wakes up in his tour bus after the Deadlights, and the ghost of his best friend is throwing puzzle pieces at him. The upside: he gets a second chance, to "make things right." The downside: he doesn't fucking know what that means.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	1. Rewind

He’s in the Deadlights. 

_ I want to go home _ , he thinks, and then he’s falling. 

Time goes funny. 

  
  


He wakes up on a tour bus, with the ghost Stanley Uris throwing puzzle pieces at him. He blinks. A puzzle piece narrowly misses his head. Light pokes out from behind the curtain. His head hurts. 

Stan throws another. It hits him in the forehead and bounces onto the pillow next to him. Richie lets the next one hit him in the eye. Stan is smudged around the edges, faded and greyscale. He’s older, and his eyes are still set in this constant sad, scared state, and he’s getting the puzzle pieces out of his pocket. Another hits him. 

“You’re dead,” Richie says, dumbly. 

“Nice observation skills.”

Richie leans over and vomits on the floor next to the bed. Stan inches farther away. 

“Am I in the Deadlights?”

“No,” Stan says. He stares at the vomit on the floor in disgust. 

“What d--”

“The day you get a call from Mike,” he says, simply, like that’s the easiest thing in the world to understand. Richie swallows down the vomit this time.

“Are you a ghost?” he says, instead of the million questions he wants to ask. “What’s going on?”

“I think I am. The Turtle wasn’t very specific. I’m here to del-”

“The  _ what _ ?”

“Turtle.” Stan rolls his eyes, like he’s dumb for not getting it. Richie pinches the inside of his elbow and it hurts. He makes a mental note to Google if you can vomit in dreams. “We don’t really have time to talk about it, Rich. You need to-”

“Wait. Go fucking back to the  _ Turtle _ .”

“Can you shut up for one fucking minute?” Stan snaps. “I’m not here for long. Good fucking god. I need you to make things right.”

“What do you mean?”

When Stan throws another puzzle piece at him, blood spills from the cuts on his wrists. His voice sounds far away, muffled, like he’s talking from under the bed. “You’re smart, Rich. You can figure it out.”

“Make  _ what  _ right?”

Blood stains the sheets next to him. “Eddie dies.”

His stomach turns and he stares at the vomit on the floor. “He  _ what _ ?”

Stan looks him in the eyes, and he sees him and Eddie mirrored in them.  _ Richie, wake up, man, I think I killed It!  _ Richie can’t look away. He sees himself, blinking awake from the Deadlights. Eddie’s chin stains with blood as he opens his mouth again.  _ Richie _ . The leg retracts from his body, a sick, squishing sound hanging in the air. The Richie in the sewers takes Bill and Mike to get him away from Eddie in the end. 

The Richie in the tour bus bedroom blinks, and dry heaves onto the floor. “ _ Dude _ ,” he says, to Stan, who’s staring at him apologetically. “What the fuck.”

“You need to make it right,” Stan repeats. 

“How?” Richie says, eyes closed. He waits for a response. 

When he opens his eyes, Stan isn’t there. A puzzle piece (a corner) sits by his head. He vomits again. 

  
  


When he first moved to LA, he would wake up on his shitty UCLA bed and cry, thinking  _ EDDIE EDDIE EDDIE  _ (who?). 

His phone buzzes, again and again, and his head swims. His manager rolls his eyes. 

“Are you gonna take that, Richie?” 

He shrugs. If he doesn’t go, Eddie doesn’t die, right? If he doesn’t go, he doesn’t get trapped in the Deadlights, and Eddie doesn’t get skewered. 

_ Make it right _ . He hears Eddie in his head, blood staining his chin, dripping out of Stan’s wrists. He doesn’t pick up. 

  
  


Stan glares at him, throwing a puzzle piece at his eye. 

“Ow, dude, what the  _ fuck _ .”

He gets hit with another piece. Light streams in from his window. Stan glares some more. He doesn’t vomit this time. “That’s not what I meant.”

“How was I supposed to know? You and the fucking Turtle weren’t very clear.”

“Don’t bring the Turtle into this,” Stan says. “You made a pact.”

“I’m  _ so _ sorry,” Richie says, his voice raising, and then he realizes he’s talking to a  _ ghost  _ and people don’t normally think that’s the best. He whispers with as much anger as he can, instead. “I didn't know if I was  _ offending  _ the fucking Turtle.”

“It sounds stupid,” Stan says, blood staining his pants as he tucks his hands in his pockets. “But the Turtle is your friend.”

Richie laughs, empty and hollow.  _ I’m going fucking insane _ . “You know why I didn't cry when my pet turtle died?”

“Richie, this isn’t the time for a joke.”

“I’m still,” he says, “shell-shocked.”

Stan actively glowers down at him in lieu of a response. Richie takes this in stride. 

“Why can’t you just tell me what to do?” he says, instead.

“There are  _ rules _ , Richie,” Stan says, like he should know this. Richie puts his hands up in surrender. 

“I’m sorry I don’t know the rules of the afterlife.”

“I made a deal with the Turtle,” he says, voice getting warped and muffled and quiet. “I can’t say too much, but you need to make this right.”

“I don’t know  _ how _ .”

“You’re smart, Richie,” Stan says, blood spilling out of his mouth and wrists. Richie looks away. “Make it right.”

He got a copy of  _ A Christmas Carol _ before tour, hoping that if he  _ had  _ a book, he would eventually read more. It didn't work. He got bored on the third page, and decided that choosing a classic wasn’t the best idea, and spent the rest of the plane ride bouncing his leg and reloading Twitter. He watched the movie, anyway. He wasn’t in it for the literature. 

He saw a therapist, once, a week before the tour started. He didn't tell her much, because what was there to say? That he didn't remember any of his childhood, or who he was before coming to LA? That he has dreams where a boy has black demon vomit juice dripping out of his mouth, and he wonders if Bill ever got rid of his stutter, despite not knowing who Bill is?

That he wakes up and stares at the scar on his left palm, the scar that he didn't remember getting, and misses something he can’t place?

So he got a book and drank a lot and ordered cheerios on the flight. 

He stares at it now, as his phone buzzes. He picks up. 

“Hey, this is Richie Tozier, right?” Mike’s voice is familiar, and it would be nice if he didn't know what was coming. 

“Mike?”

“Do you remember?”

“It’s…” he debates telling him that he woke up to the ghost of Stan ( _ they don’t know he’s dead _ ) throwing a bird puzzle at him and showing him a replay of his best friend’s death, talking about a turtle with a capital T.  _ What you missed in the sewers! _ (If he ever wrote his own material, he would add that to it. He doesn’t know how he would incorporate the clown just yet, but he has some time to work on it). “I recognized your voice,” he settles on, because Mike’s got a demonic entity and dead kids to worry about, and he doesn’t need to add his terrible mental health to the list. 

“Listen, It’s come back.”

“I know.”

“Will you come back to Derry?”

As if, in a million years, he wouldn’t. As if he would let them go through that alone.  _ You did, the first (second?) time this day happened,  _ his traitorous brain says, and he swallows down vomit. What happened, when he didn't pick up? Did Eddie still die? Did Stan still kill himself?

His stomach turns at the thought of them dead, Eddie dying when he isn’t there, Stan alone in his tub. He closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll be there.”

He books a flight that leaves in two hours ( _ I’m not known for good decisions _ , he rationalizes) and tells his manager to cancel the shows. 

“Why?” Steve asks. 

“I just…” Richie sighs, and shrugs, and turns his phone on and off, playing with the corner of his case. “I need to go back to my hometown for a bit.” Steve glares at him. “I don’t know how long, okay? Please?”

Steve rolls his eyes, and says, “drink some water, dude, you look like you’re gonna pass out.”

He goes to the bathroom (the walls are painted a light shade of brown, and the tiles sway under his feet) and stares at himself in the mirror, the rim of the sink digging into his hands. His eyes are huge, and sunken in, and he thinks,  _ hey everybody! How are you Chicago? I see my dead best friend!  _ He thinks of Eddie’s eyes as he got stabbed, the way he said,  _ Richie _ . He vomits into the sink. 

When he looks up again, wiping off his chin, he sees a glimpse of Stan in the mirror, rolling his eyes. He gives a thumbs up, and Stan returns it, smiling. When he blinks, Stan is gone, and blood drips onto the floor. 

He takes  _ A Christmas Carol _ with him, packs it in his suitcase, and leaves for the airport. 

  
  


_ Fuck _ , he thinks, getting in his rental car.  _ I should’ve asked for Stan’s number. _

  
  


He remembers, leaning his forehead against the window, the Paul Bunyan statue. He takes another sip of coke, and wishes Stan were here. He wishes he never forgot. He wishes, in an abstract way, that he stayed in Derry instead of Mike. 

He wonders if there’s a version of it all where none of them stayed, where Georgie went missing but they didn't try to go find them, where It tormented another group of kids. He wonders if he was happier in those universes, who he would be without the Losers, if he would give up the best moments in his life as well as the worst ones. He doesn’t decide which universe he would take. He wonders if he still has his old yearbook, and if Eddie liked his specials. 

He curses whatever the Turtle is, and keeps going. 

He gets to Derry, and time doesn’t shift on its side. He doesn’t fall. He keeps going and going and drives to Maine in his stupid red rental and hopes Stan walks through the door. He wonders if there’s a universe where Stan comes to Derry again, if there’s a universe where Eddie loves him back, if there’s a universe where Eddie didn't marry his mother and Bev didn't marry her father and they all live happily without each other. He wonders who he would be without them, adn swallows down the thought, because he doesn’t have to live in that universe. He is here, and he is stuck in a time warp, and he is haunted by the ghost of his best friend, but he is still here. He is in Derry, six out of the seven losers, and thinks,  _ here we are again. _

He has to make it right. That’s his one job (despite it being really fucking vague, thanks,  _ Turtle _ ), and he’s not sure how to do it. 

He takes one look at Eddie and thinks,  _ run away with me _ , and he’s got basically nothing to lose. Stan doesn’t show up, and Richie gets really, really drunk, and Bev doesn’t know who wrote her the poem. He swallows down the memories of the clubhouse, and hates himself for forgetting all over again. 

He remembers, suddenly, the note he wrote himself when they were kids;  _ these are the people who love you. These are the people who you love _ . He looks around the table and his teeth ache with it. 

He thinks of the kissing bridge, and the quarry, and he listens to conversation he’s already had. What happened when he didn't come back?

He entertains, for a second, the possibility that he’s still in the Deadlights, that he could roll over and save Eddie in the last second. 

When he looks over, he’s almost surprised that he doesn’t have a bandage on his cheek. He thinks, recklessly,  _ I love you I love you I love you.  _ Fucking  _ Bowers _ . In all the clown-and-Charles-Dickens drama, he forgot about the psycho on the loose. God, he has so much fucking material for whenever he starts writing his own shit. A clown who eats fear and kills kids, a murderer escaped from the psych ward, being hopelessly in love with your best friend. What else is there to make jokes about?

He doesn’t realize he’s zoning out until Eddie snaps in his face, and asks, loud and all in one breath, “Richieareyoumarried?”

“Yeah,” he says, because he’s told this joke before, and he knows the script. “Didn't you hear? I got married.”

“There’s no way Richie got married.”

“Oh, didn't you hear? Eddie’s mom and I are so happy together.”

He watches Eddie try not to laugh, and Bill choke on his drink, and he wishes he didn't forget, that he could relive  _ this  _ moment instead of whatever bullshit they have to go through next. He wants to be with the people he loves. He wishes they were together because they  _ wanted  _ to be, not because some terrible, kid-eating demon was back. 

_ Fuck you, Turtle _ , he thinks, and he wonders, if he tries hard enough, he’ll make Stan appear in the seat next to him. 

They call Patty. Stan’s still dead. He lets himself cry this time, because he can see Stan smudged around the edges and greyscale and warped. He can see the blood flowing out of his wrists and thinks,  _ Eddie’s gonna end up like that _ and then  _ not if I can help it _ . 

So he quietly apologizes to Mike, and says he’s really sorry, but he’s gotta take a lap, and pulls Eddie with him. He hugs him before he goes, thinks,  _ come with me please lets leave, let them deal with it _ , because he’s very, very good at running away. He ran away from Derry, and from It, and from the things he loved and the things he hated, to become a c-list comedian who forgot his last name and his own joke. 

(He’s not in that universe anymore, he thinks, he didn't do that show). 

(It wasn’t even his joke). 

They stand by his car in silence, and he thinks about the kissing bridge, thinks,  _ isn’t it fucking pathetic that I’ve been in love with you my whole life? _

“Wanna take a road trip?” he says, because whenever he closes his eyes, he sees Eddie die again, and he doesn’t want to  _ live  _ through that. 

“What?”

“Do you wanna, like, run away with me?” He leans against his stupid, flashy rental car. “We can make it all cinematic, Eds. If you want, we can kiss in the rain.”

“Shut the fuck up. That’s not my name,” Eddie says. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

“Dead serious. Let’s get out of this shitty town.”

He sounds like a protagonist in a bad indie movie, or a hallmark movie, the ones he watches on the couch of his too-big apartment back in LA. 

“For real?”

“Yeah, Eds,” Richie says, and he finds that he means it. “When have I ever lied to you?”

So Eddie grabs his toiletry bag, and his two fucking suitcases, and the back of Richie’s nose burns. 

“So,” Eddie says, loading his things into the back. “Where are we going?”

“Where do you wanna go?” 

Richie rubs at the scar on his palm and hopes to the Turtle, or god, fuck it, even  _ Stan _ , that he can live through this. 

“I feel bad about leaving them,” Eddie confesses, slamming the trunk closed. His chest feels weighed down by the honesty of it, and he sees Stan in the reflection in the window. He’s glaring at them, so this choice is probably not the right one, but  _ fuck it _ , what does he have to lose but Eddie and the rest of them? He can just redo it, because his whole life save for a few moments have been living hell. 

“Me too,” he settles on. Stan rolls his eyes in the reflection, and says,  _ you better,  _ but no one turns around to face him. He disappears after Richie blinks. 

A puzzle piece falls onto the pavement. It was the same corner piece on his pillow. 

Eddie has the same hesitation Richie feels on his face. He watches the piece on the ground, like it’s gonna turn into some creature like the fortune cookies did, which isn’t an unfounded fear. Richie stares at it, and thinks,  _ I see ghosts,  _ and starts to cry. 


	2. Richie Runs Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At fifteen in the quarry, the horrors of that summer seem far away, because Bill is trying to get Stan to jump into the (freezing) water, and Ben and Mike are bickering, and Richie is (very obnoxiously) dumping handfuls of grass into Eddie’s lap. Bev moved away, and has been forgetting to call, lately, but it’s hard to notice when Stan shrieks and says, “Don’t you fucking dare push me in there, you asshole.”
> 
> Richie sprinkles grass into Eddie’s hair, and watches him wrinkle his nose. “I’m prolly gonna get a fucking bug in my hair, idiot,” he says, but lets more grass fall into his lap. 
> 
> “Bugs aren’t real, Spaghetti.”
> 
> “What the fuck do you mean, bugs aren’t real?” Eddie says. “And don’t call me that.”
> 
> “Bugs aren’t real.”
> 
> “Are you serious? Are you being fucking serious right now?”
> 
> “The government made them up, Eds, didn't you know?”

  
  


They get in the car in silence, Richie wiping tears from his face and Eddie sighing, looking over at him with so much concern in his eyes that Richie wants to vomit again. 

“You okay, man?”

He nods, and makes a thumbs-up motion, and backs out of the parking lot. Richie forgot his bag. That’s  _ fine,  _ it’s  _ fine _ . 

Whenever he closes his eyes, he sees Eddie’s face as he dies, and he wants to scream. The guilt of leaving the others sets in; they might die, too.  _ These are the people who love you. These are the people who you love _ . 

“Is it, uh,” Richie starts, and then he thinks about stopping, but what does he have to lose? “Is it okay if we stop somewhere, first?”

“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie says, easily, which is not something that happens often. “Do whatever you need to do.”

He almost leans over and kisses Eddie right there, with the windshield and the car honking at them from behind. They stare at each other for a second, and he thinks about the way he would catch Eddie staring at him sometimes, like Richie was something that he couldn’t really figure out. 

He stops at the temple where he and Stan went as kids. Eddie nods, and pokes at his phone. He says, as Richie waits for him, not sure what to do with his hands, “you can go, dude. I’ll stay out here.”

Richie thinks about Bowers. “He escaped,” he says, dumbly. 

“Who?” Eddie says, and Richie tries to answer but he can’t get the words out. “What are you talking about, Rich?”

He swallows. Would Eddie believe him, if he knew? How would he phrase it without sounding like he’s gone insane (which he probably is, given everything)?  _ Ghost Stan is haunting me and you die and I’ve lived through this before.  _

“Bowers,” Richie says. “He’s still got a mullet and he’s gonna stab you in the face.”

Eddie laughs, and then stops. “How do you know?”

“I just...do?”

“ _ What _ ?”

“The Turtle.”

“Richie,” Eddie says, slowly. “You’re not making any sense.”

Richie laughs, and coughs, and tries not to vomit. “Just, like, come with me, okay? Please.”

Eddie sighs, but he still gets out of the car and follows him into the temple. They sit, and he almost hears young Stan say  _ we’re losers, and we always fucking will be _ . He wishes Stan were here. He wishes that he didn't have to only talk to him through hauntings. He curses the Turtle, and God, or whatevers watching and thinks  _ give me my friends back _ . 

He turns, and Ghost Stan is next to him, smiling, his eyes sad. 

If Eddie (who already thinks he's going insane) weren’t sitting next to him, he would ask,  _ do you regret it?  _

Ghost Stan turns toward him, tries to touch his hand, even though they both know it will go right through, and says, “I don’t know.”

Richie nods.  _ You can fucking read minds now? Is that a Turtle power?  _

“You’re using the Turtle as an adjective now?” he says. "

_ I don’t know what it is _ , Richie thinks at Stan,  _ you never told me.  _

“You can’t even shut up in your own  _ head _ , huh?” Stan looks amused, and fond, and he thinks about the quarry and  _ we always fucking will be _ and  _ do you think we’ll be friends when we’re older?  _ He wants to go back and never forget. 

He wonders if there’s a universe where they never had to go through this. Where Stan and Eddie don’t die. Where Georgie doesn’t let go of the boat, where Pennywise doesn’t exist, where they never forget. He wonders if there’s a version of this where they grow up somewhere else, where he isn’t in love with Eddie and where Bill wrote the poem and where Bev never was in the pharmacy. He wonders who he would be without them, and never comes to a conclusion. He wishes they were void of pain, he wishes they weren’t terrified. He wishes Stan didn't feel the need to kill himself and he wishes Bev never had to grow up with her father and he wishes Eddie never got demon vomit on his red shirt. 

He wishes that they had a  _ childhood _ , but he doesn’t know if he would take back that summer. He doesn’t know what it would be without the--the fucking  _ trauma bonding  _ that gave him his best friends.

He remembers the way he loved them, so deep down in his veins, the way he loved them in the clubhouse and in the Orient. He wonders if he ever loved anyone as much as he loved the Losers. 

Stan isn’t there when he looks back. He turns to Eddie, who is staring out into the distance and bouncing his leg, light caught in his hair. 

“What are you looking at?” he asks, when he catches Richie staring. He looks away. 

“I don’t know,” he swallows the words, fits them behind his teeth and stores them for later. A better time. 

“I’m going to divorce Myra.”

“Why?”

“I didn't remember all of... _ this _ when I married her,” he says, simply, but there’s more to it, and Richie doesn’t ask. 

“Would you give up all of that summer, all of the good stuff,” Richie asks, slowly, because he’s terrified (but he’s always been terrified. Being scared has a special place behind his ribs, fitted behind his heart. He’s spent his entire life being scared; it comes naturally. It tastes bad in his mouth, but he’s used to it. He can’t imagine a world without it there.

It’s funny how something so  _ bad  _ can become so normal, a noise you don’t notice until it’s gone). 

Eddie waits for him to finish the question, expectant, like he already knows what answer he’s going to give. 

“Would you give up all of that, if you could give up Pennywise?”

“No.”

No hesitation, simple. Sure. Eddie’s always been braver than him, down to his core.  _ And I’ve got a broken arm!  _ rings in Richie’s head, and he smiles, and he nods. Eddie’s braver than he could ever fucking know. 

“Yeah,” Richie says. “I wouldn’t, either.”

  
  


As they drive, they remember.

  
  


At fifteen in the quarry, the horrors of that summer seem far away, because Bill is trying to get Stan to jump into the (freezing) water, and Ben and Mike are bickering, and Richie is (very obnoxiously) dumping handfuls of grass into Eddie’s lap. Bev moved away, and has been forgetting to call, lately, but it’s hard to notice when Stan shrieks and says, “Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ push me in there, you asshole.”

Richie sprinkles grass into Eddie’s hair, and watches him wrinkle his nose. “I’m prolly gonna get a fucking bug in my hair, idiot,” he says, but lets more grass fall into his lap. 

“Bugs aren’t real, Spaghetti.”

“What the  _ fuck  _ do you mean, bugs aren’t real?” Eddie says. “And don’t call me that.”

“Bugs aren’t real.”

“Are you serious? Are you being fucking serious right now?”

“The government made them up, Eds, didn't you know?”

Eddie stands up and brushes the dirt and grass off his legs, and sits back down.  _ I love you _ , Richie thinks. 

“The government did  _ not  _ make bugs up, what the  _ fuck _ ?”

“They made bugs up to scare you, idiot,” Richie says, instead of the thousand other things he wants to say. “Don’t fall for Bush’s tricks.”

“ _ You’re _ the idiot,” he says, but he’s laughing. 

“They’re spying on you, just like the birds.”

“Birds are real, Richie,” Stan yells, throwing grass at Bill. “Fuck you!”

“They’re  _ spies _ ,” Richie insists, mouth a hard line, face hurting from trying not to laugh. “Don’t be beguiled by their trickery.”

“I didn't know you knew a word that big,” Stan calls, and Mike uses his book to shield his face from the water Bill is spaying onto them. “Are you busting out the thesaurus back there?”

“Jokes on you,” Richie says, laying his head in Eddie’s lap. He can almost  _ hear  _ Eddie rolling his eyes, but he doesn’t make him move. “I don’t know how to read.”

“That’s believable,” Ben says.   
“Oh, Benjamin. How you wound me.”

Mike laughs, and Eddie absentmindedly puts a hand in Richie’s hair, undoing the knots. He closes his eyes, and hears Bill and Stan jump into the water, and Ben say something in a low voice to Mike. The sun makes the back of his eyelids orange, and it’s heavy, and he thinks,  _ if I try hard enough, I’ll never forget this _ . 

“Your hair is fucking itchy.”

“Your  _ mom _ .”

“That doesn’t-- _ that doesn’t even make sense _ ,” Eddie bitches, but he laughs, too. 

_ These are the people that love you. These are the people that you love _ . 

  
  


They have movie nights at Mike’s most weekends, and they watch bad movies. Eddie and Richie have reign over the couch, and Mike sleeps on the recliner, and Bill and Stan have the air mattress. Ben brings a sleeping bag, and gets the space closest to the TV, and gets to pet the dog the most. 

They used to call Bev before they went to bed, passing the phone around and putting it on speaker, but she hasn’t been picking up and they’ve been forgetting to call, lately, and that’s okay. 

“Shut  _ up _ , Bill,” Stan mumbles. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak.”

“Then I’m weak,” he says, “and you’re loud.”

The lights go out, and the silence is familiar, and Richie is filled with all the love he feels for the stupid boys in this room. Eddie kicks at his leg, and mouths,  _ I’m bored.  _

“Same,” he whispers, and he’s always been bad at whispering. Stan holds his pillow up, a threat. 

Eddie smiles at him, and the blue VHS screen lights up half of his face, and Richie loves him so much his teeth ache with it. 

  
  


Mike calls them four times before he picks up. Eddie is in the bathroom, no stab wound on his cheek.

“Mike,” Richie says. “I’m sorry.”

“I get it,” he sighs, and Richie feels like he’s going to throw up. “I’m sorry I brought you all back here.”

“We made a pact.”

“It was stupid,” Mike says, voice breaking on what could either be a laugh or a sob. “I should’ve just--I should’ve  _ left _ .”

“I’m glad we all saw each other again, though,” Richie says, and he’s fighting down the urge to say something stupid. “I felt like I was missing a part of me I couldn’t quite place.”

He leans back in his seat, dragging a hand down his face. Now that he’s saying it, he knows it’s true, and his heart breaks for the millionth time today. 

“We all deserve so much better,” Mike says. 

“We really, really do.”

  
  


“I wonder what they’re doing,” Eddie says, “back in Derry.”

“I feel like I’m missing school.”

“Remember when Bev wore those silk gloves every day of freshman year?”

“That was the day I thought,  _ she’s gonna be a fashion designer _ ,” Richie says. “Where are we going?”

Eddie shrugs. “I have to call Myra. Tell her I’m divorcing her. Jesus  _ Christ _ .”

Richie thinks,  _ this may be something _ , and then feels guilty. “So, New York? To get your stuff?”

“I kinda packed most of it.”

“No shit, you brought, like, seven suitcases.”

“I brought  _ two _ ,” Eddie snaps. “That’s a normal amount of suitcases.”

“For a very short trip.”

“We didn't know how long it was going to be, asshole.”

“I mean, I think we can safely assume that it’s not worth two suitcases.”

Ghost Stan sighs sharply from the backseat, but isn’t there when Richie looks in the mirror.  _ Jesus, Stan,  _ he thinks, even though it makes his chest hurt with grief (Stan is dead Stan is a ghost in your back seat),  _ let me live _ . 

Eddie says something about being prepared. 

“Is that why you had two fanny packs?”

“I was  _ thirteen _ , and I probably saved all of your lives with those. Don’t shit on the fanny packs.”

“I hear they’re back in style now,” Richie says. “Should I get you one for Christmas?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“That’s not what your mom said to me last night,” he ignores the glare Eddie sends his way. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he takes a left out of Derry. 

“My mother is dead,” Eddie yells, trying not to laugh. “She’s been dead for years!”

“Doesn’t stop her from loving my--”

A truck turns in front of them, and Richie thinks,  _ my one fucking goal was to keep him alive _ , and Eddie yells something. _Close your eyes_ , he hears Stan yell, from somewhere. He does. 

He wishes he knew what Eddie said, his last words, no spider-leg through his chest. Richie thinks about the hammock and the sleepovers and crawling through his window. He thinks of Eddie with a scar through his cheek, blood dripping out of his mouth and his eyes. He thinks about blood, a fuckton of blood on the bathroom floor and on Stan's wrists and all over his shirt. The demon vomit that Eddie had all over half of his face. 

He thinks about Mike, and his voice over the phone, and his favorite sweater. He thinks about Bill, _he thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts_ , the set of his jaw when he wanted to be a leader. He thinks about _I want to go towards something_ , the strong, sure look in Bev's eyes. Ben and his poem. Stan and his birds and Eddie and his fanny packs and he hopes they know he loves them. _I love you,_ he thinks, as he crashes. _I love you, I love you, I love you_. 

He wonders if he'll wake up in his tour bed like nothing happened, head thumping, Stan sighing. He wonders if he wants to. He decides he doesn't care.

He feels like he’s falling. 

Time goes funny. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello thank u 4 reading!!!


	3. Richie Freaks Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It won’t give me a disease,” Richie says, glasses almost slipping off his nose. “Because birds aren’t real.”
> 
> “You’re still on the birds-aren’t-real bullshit?” 
> 
> “It’s not bullshit,” he says, looking back to Eddie and swallowing the urge to grab his hand. “Dare you to touch it.”
> 
> “What the fuck,” Eddie yells, as Richie grabs his wrist and moves his hand closer to the bird. “You know what you could get from that? You could get salmonella, or trichomoniasis, or--or aspergillosis, you know that?”
> 
> “I think you made those up,” he says. “Touch the bird.”
> 
> “I’m not gonna get fucking avian pox just ‘cause you’re a dumbass!”
> 
> “At least with a stick.”
> 
> “Fucking no.”

He jolts awake this time, watches Stan, smiles then laughs and then cries. 

“I died making a dick joke,” he sobs. 

“I know,” Stan says. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve been watching the road.”

“That’s just how that timeline went,” he says, blood in his hair from where he ran a hand through it. It sticks up on his head. Richie cries harder.  _ It’s just so fucking unfair _ , he thinks, angry and sad and staring at the smudged ( _ DEAD) _ version of Stan in front of him.  _ I’m destined to lose two of the people I love most _ . Fuck the Turtle, fuck whatever higher power is up there. In every timeline, they’re doomed; the one where they don’t meet (they don’t get each other), the one where Georgie doesn’t die (some other little kid gets eaten and murdered and some other group of children has to fight It). In every single universe, in every single version of this groundhog day clown magic, they’re fucked. Richie runs a hand over his face. 

“We’re  _ fucked _ ,” he says, to no one and everyone. To his 11 year old self and to his 20 year old self and to Eddie and Bill and Bev and Ben and Mike. Stan puts a hand on his shoulder, firm and light and  _ not there _ , because he’s dead and he died in his bathtub and he wrote  _ IT  _ on the wall with his own fucking blood. He did a puzzle piece and Mike called and then he died, with his teenage years stolen and his best friends stolen and Richie wants to hit the stupid fucking clown with a baseball bat again. 

All this fucking time was stolen from them and they can never get it back. Georgie didn't get to grow up. Eddie was convinced he was sick, and then stood up to her, and then forgot and married his mother. Mike didn't get the chance to leave, to live a life outside of Derry, stuck there, knowing they don’t remember him. Bev’s stuck with an asshole husband just like her dad, and Ben never wrote another poem and Bill lost his little brother. 

He picks up his phone and he throws it across the room, flying through Stan’s right ear (HE’S DEAD, his brain screams, HE’S DEAD AND YOU’RE TALKING TO A GHOST AND YOU’RE HAVING A PSYCHOTIC FUCKING BREAK.). It hits the floor and he hopes it shatters, but that’ll cost a lot of fucking money, and he won’t get the call from Mike, and everything’s fucking  _ wrong _ . 

He lets Eddie die in every single universe, every timeline. 

Stan--who carried around a bird identification book and skipped a grade and wore those button ups and asked  _ will we be friends, when we’re older? _ \--frowns at him, and his best friend is fucking dead, and he chokes on a sob. 

“Rich,” Stan says, voice slightly muffled, hand still on his shoulder. “You need to breathe.”

“I let you both die,” Richie says, and his throat closes up. He gets up in time to run to the trash bin near his bed and vomit into it. Stan watches. 

“You didn't let us both die.”

“Yes, I--I fucking  _ did _ ,” he says, forcing it around a sob, and sits back on the bed, head in his hands. “I crashed the car and didn't call you and I didn't movie Eddie out of the way. I forgot both of you. What the  _ fuck _ .”

“There was no fucking way of remembering,” Stan says, and he looks like he’s had a lot of time to think about it, and Richie guesses he has. “There was no way of knowing what It would do or what I would do. You had no control.”

“I crashed the car.”

“And you get to start again.”

“But what if I didn't?” Richie says, and Stan’s quiet for a second. 

“It still wouldn’t be your fault,” he says, his voice sure,  _ I want to run towards something, not away _ . “None of it would ever be your fault.”

He nods, and goes to the sink to splash water on his face. When he looks up into the mirror, he barely recognizes who he sees, and Stan is there behind him,  _ dead dead dead _ . 

“What do I do?” he asks. His voice sounds broken. 

“I can’t tell you.”

“ _ Why _ .”

“I made a deal,” Stan says, voice fading. “Just--do what you always do.”

He remembers them on the steps of Bev’s house,  _ do what you always do, talk _ , remembers how quiet and restless he felt. All alone while they were cleaning the blood bathroom he thought they were making up. 

He closes his eyes, and Stan’s not in the bathroom mirror when he opens them again. “Thanks, Turtle God,” he says, to himself and no one, seeing a bird in the window. “Great fucking advice.”

“Hello, is this Richie Tozier?”

“Mike?”

“You--you remember?”

“Something like it. There was a clown?”

“Are you coming back?”

“Of course, man. I--uh, I love you, man.”

“I love you, Rich. I’m sorry I had to call you back.”

“I get it. I’ll be there.”

  
  


Eddie hated the Smiths when they were fifteen and Richie would write their lyrics all over the knees of his jeans. He thought they were, “a real fucking bummer, Rich,” and would  _ very loudly _ complain when they came on. Richie listens to them on the plane to Bangor. 

_ Please, please, please. Let me, let me, let me get what I want this time.  _

He hates the Turtle with every part of him. 

He ignores  _ A Christmas Carol _ , cause he thinks he gets the jist of it by now. 

  
  


Stan sits in the back for half of his drive to Derry, making fun of his music taste. He plays Hollaback Girl just to piss him off, and his chest hurts when he remembers that he missed 27 years of this. 

“Do you regret it?” Richie asks again, turning The Fresh Prince of Bel Air down so Stan can hear him, even though he doesn’t know if ghosts need to hear (it’s all been very vague and confusing, this whole groundhog day scenario).

Stan shrugs. “I think it was what I had to do.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t regret it.”

“I think,” Stan pauses, and the car is suddenly filled with  _ I begged and pleaded with her, day after day!  _ and Richie just has to laugh, because of fucking course they’re having this conversation while  _ this  _ song plays, and Stan starts to laugh, too. They laugh until the song changes, and Richie fucking misses them all so much, despite the fact that he’s seen them for the past three days (time is fake, he’s decided). 

Their laughter does die down, though, because the song does end and the car goes silent the question is still unanswered.

“So, do you regret it?”

“You’ve asked that question four fucking times.”

“I’d like an answer.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, Rich.”

“And satisfaction brought it back, Stan.”

The car is quiet again, and fucking Blank Space by Taylor Swift starts to play, and Stan gets this sad, fond look on his face. “Patty loved this song when it came out.”

“What’s Patty like?” Richie asks, even though his other question never got answered. Stan smiles again, and he’s grateful that the two of them met, because he’s never seen Stan smile like that. 

“You ask a lot of questions,” he says, but keeps the stupidly fond smile on his face. He wishes he knew this Stan. He wishes he had the time he lost back. “She’s great--she just, like, isn’t afraid to  _ live _ , you know? She’s just fearless, at all times. I love her. So fucking much. I wish--I wish I didn't have to leave her like that. I wish I didn't have to leave her at all.”

“What did you do?” Richie says. “In those 20 years?”

“I got a job. An accountant in Georgia. I met Patty in college and we had a group project together and we were together from there,” Stan says. “I missed you guys for a while after I moved away. I kept meaning to write, but I never remembered to. I knew that I had these best friends back home, but I couldn’t remember your names. I missed you without knowing who you were.”

“Did you know we would forget when we were kids?” Richie asks, because he wants to know this Stan, the older one, the one he’ll never get to hug or grow old with. He never got to grow up with them, like they planned. He thinks about when Bev’s letters stopped coming, when she stopped answering the phone, when they all moved away and promised to write but never did. 

“I think I did,” he says, solemn and sad and wistful. Maine blurs around them. Richie opens in the window and turns off the music and lets himself  _ feel _ . “Yeah. I knew.”

His voice is starting to sound muffled and his wrists are bleeding steadily. 

“I wish we got to grow up together.”

“We did, dipshit,” Stan says. “But I wish we didn't lose so much time.”

“So?” Richie says. “Do you regret it?”

“I wish I didn't have to,” he says, carefully, “I wish I had another option. But I didn't. I had to make things right, just like you.”

“What do you  _ mean _ ?” Richie slams his hands down on the steering wheel, looking in the mirror for Stan, but he’s not there. A puzzle piece lays on the seat, and Richie cries as he passes the  _ Welcome to Derry! _ sign. 

  
  


Fourteen, Richie and Eddie lean over a dead bird. 

Or, Richie leans over it and Eddie stands a good ten feet away and screams at him from a distance. 

“That could give you  _ so many  _ fucking diseases,” he says, but trails a little closer. 

“It won’t give me a disease,” Richie says, glasses almost slipping off his nose. “Because birds aren’t real.”

“You’re still on the birds-aren’t-real bullshit?” 

“It’s not bullshit,” he says, looking back to Eddie and swallowing the urge to grab his hand. “Dare you to touch it.”

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” Eddie yells, as Richie grabs his wrist and moves his hand closer to the bird. “You know what you could get from that? You could get salmonella, or trichomoniasis, or--or  _ aspergillosis _ , you know that?”

“I think you made those up,” he says. “Touch the bird.”

“I’m not gonna get fucking  _ avian pox _ just ‘cause you’re a dumbass!”

“At least with a stick.”

“Fucking  _ no _ .”

“Then I will,” Richie says, just to get Eddie to yell at him some more, to grab his wrist and yank his hand away from it. Just to see his face flush and his eyes go bright and see him try not to laugh. Richie thinks,  _ oh fuck, I’m in love with you _ , and he thinks if you scraped him down to his rawest form you would just see that--the fact that he loves this boy more than anything in the whole fucking world, even though he could get killed for it. He knows what people write about him on bathroom walls. He fucking knows and he can’t stop himself from loving Eddie down to his core. So, like any repressed teen would do, he’s going to touch a dead bird on a sidewalk. 

“No you-- _ you dipshit _ , do  _ not  _ touch that fucking bird or I will kill you before lyme disease would you fucking dumbass--”

He doesn’t touch the bird, but he gets close, and listens very closely as Eddie lists all the symptoms of aspergillosis (fever, coughing blood, worsening asthma, fatigue, skin lesions) and Richie hears that Smiths song in his head-- _ please, please, please, let me, let me, let me get what I want, this time. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> touching dead birds is something that can be so personal  
> im eddiedefnesesquad on tumblr n thank u 4 reading!!!


	4. Richie Throws Rocks at a Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is throwing rocks at Eddie’s window; hearing them hit the glass until it opens and a (very angry, very adorable) head pops out to whisper-yell at him. 
> 
> “Rich, what the  _ fuck _ are you doing?” he hisses, and Richie thinks  _ oh, god, I’m in love with you _ , and his chest hurts a little, but he smiles and throws a rock that misses the window by a long shot. “Nice aim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back babey! this chapter is slightly tender !!!

Richie is throwing rocks at Eddie’s window; hearing them hit the glass until it opens and a (very angry, very adorable) head pops out to whisper-yell at him. 

“Rich, what the  _ fuck _ are you doing?” he hisses, and Richie thinks  _ oh, god, I’m in love with you _ , and his chest hurts a little, but he smiles and throws a rock that misses the window by a long shot. “Nice aim.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this not Ms. K’s window?”

He hears Eddie laugh and then put a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t wake up his mom. 

“You’re gonna catch a cold, idiot.”

Richie got good at climbing the trees to Eddie’s bedroom window, good at scaling the Kaspbrak backyard and hauling himself onto the (very clean) carpet and the comic books stacked in a pile. He sees Eddie shake his head and mouth  _ fucking hurry _ . 

“Some Romeo and Juliet moment, Eds.”

“You’re gonna wake up my mom,” he says. “And that’s not my name.”

“Don’t hate the messenger, hate the message. I’m just the vessel.”

“What the fuck does that even  _ mean _ .”

“You know,” Richie says, and hauls himself into Eddie’s room and falls down on his stack of comic books like every other night. His bed is unmade. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting your beauty sleep?” 

“Could say the same to you,” he says. “You know, not getting enough sleep can kill you.”

Richie flings himself onto Eddie’s bed, ready to listen. Eddie lays down next to him and he tries to stop his heart from beating out of his chest. He’s smushed against the wall and Eddie’s arm and thinks,  _ if lack of sleep doesn’t kill me this sure will, _ and says, “tell me all about it, Dr. K.”

“Well, it starts with fatigue and memory problems and mood changes, but then it starts getting worse,” he says, swinging his arms around, and Richie bites down the urge to just, like, take his hand to keep his elbow from hitting him in the face for the millionth time. “You become, like, paranoid and you hallucinate and it changes your blood pressure. You gag way too much. My mom said that she knew someone in Portland who fell asleep while driving and crashed their car because they hallucinated a dog in the middle of the road.”

(Sonia did _not_ know anyone who crashed their car because of lack of sleep, just like she didn't know someone who got AIDs from a hangnail, just like she didn't know her son at all). 

“Then why aren’t you getting your eight to ten hours, Spaghetti?”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says, “and I was  _ waiting  _ for you, dumbass, because I didn't want to have to get up again. I have a message for your sister.”

_ This is gonna kill me _ , he thinks, and rolls over so he’s facing Eddie. “What might that be?”

“I didn't think this far into the joke,” he says, and rolls his eyes when Richie laughs. “You’re gonna wake up my mom, dipshit.”

“Good,” Richie says, staring at Eddie’s eyes and nose and jaw.  _ I love you, I love you, I love you _ . “Then I can do what I originally planned.”

“Oh?” 

“Yup,” he says. “I’m gonna fuck her good--”

Eddie rips his pillow out from under him and hits Richie over the head with it. “Every  _ single  _ time,” he says, punctuating very word with a hit. They fall over laughing. 

“You're sleeping in _that?_ _"_ Eddie asks. 

“Well, if  _ you  _ wanted me out of my jeans all you had to do was ask, Eds.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot.”

“Maybe so.”

Richie wonders if he’ll remember this when he’s older, the curve of Eddie’s neck and the way his eyes look in the dark of his bedroom and the way his chest hurts a little bit. He makes a mental note, to memorize this, to make sure this is burned into the backs of his eyelids and laced into on his joints. He thinks that he’ll die before he would give any of them up, he would rather be sent to hell and tortured for eternity before saying goodbye to his _real_ family. 

“Shit, we’re meeting them at the diner for breakfast tomorrow, right?” Eddie says, getting up and throwing him a pair of sweatpants and a shirt he’s left here in the million times he’s crawled through that window. It’s so domestic that, for a second, Richie lets himself imagine a world where he could have this, where he could love Eddie openly and loudly and not have to carve it into the kissing bridge. It’s almost too much, the image of a kitchen or kids or saying  _ I love you _ at the end of a phone call. “Or is that Sunday? Rich?” Eddie flicks him in the forehead and the love he feels in his chest is all consuming. 

“It’s tomorrow.”

“What time do we have to be there?”

“I think nine?”

“That makes sense,” Eddie says, turning the light off and locking the window as Richie changes. 

“What time is it now?” Richie asks, even though he can see the bright green numbers on the digital clock on the nightstand. He just wants to hear Eddie’s voice, really. 

“Just past midnight. Get the fuck in bed. I’m tired.”

Richie climbs into be pressed against the wall and Eddie’s arm again and thinks about how he wants to do this every day, and how he never wants to forget the pile of comic books on the floor and the too-clean nightstand and the sound of Eddie talking about the symptoms of some made up disease. 

He thinks about carnival lights and the sewers and the streetlamp outside. He thinks of the nightlight in the corner and how Eddie is bravest person he knows and he falls asleep with Eddie’s arm thrown over his chest. 

He is 40 and he says, “Hello, my dear losers, how are you all tonight?” Bev laughs and Eddie looks at him with something fond and annoyed and sad in his eyes. Bill downs half of his drink and Ben smiles at Bev,  _ January embers _ , and Mike just looks like Mike (soft smiles, older than he should). Richie remembers that the seat next to him is empty and that’s where Stan is supposed to be and his stomach turns for a moment, before he sees a puzzle piece on the seat of his chair.  _ How fucking subtle, Urine,  _ he thinks, and grabs it before he can talk himself out of it. 

Bev’s eyes dart away when she’s asked about her husband and there’s a bruise on her wrist, faint and  _ there  _ and Richie wants to go back and time and punch her dad in the face and then punch Tom Rogan, too. They make eye contact, and he nods,  _ I know I don’t know anything but I’m here, and I get it _ , and she nods,  _ I want to run towards something _ , and that’s it. Ben looks like he Knows but they all don’t know, not really, because there is this gap where something has always been missing for all seven of them and now that they have the gap filled they don’t know what to do with it. They were supposed to stick together but they  _ didn't  _ stick together and now Stan’s dead and the clowns back and blood drips down Eddie’s chin and the car crashes. 

“Hey, Trashmouth, you alright?” Bev asks, and he’s in the Jade Orient and he’s here and he has to Make Things Right.

“Dearest Beverley, I have never been better,” he says, instead of  _ I watched the love of my life die and my best friend is dead and none of you know it because I’m living in a groundhog day universe and can’t stop waking up in my tour bus _ . “I am surrounded by my swains, and my step-son, Eds--”

“That’s not my name, asshole,” Eddie says, but he’s laughing, and there’s no scar on his cheek and no clown leg through his chest and he is real and solid and Alive. Richie’s hand twitches at his side, itches to feel the pulse point of his wrist, feel his blood pumping through the veins. He thinks, if you took away everything--his life in LA, the clown, the fact that his life has been spent more afraid than not--you would see the love he feels for the Losers written all over him. Laced in the roots of his hair and tattooed on the inside of his ribs and clogging his arteries. You would see their thirteen year old handprints all over his skeleton, you would see the fact that these people are his family and these are the people he would die for. 

He wishes they grew up somewhere else. He wishes they didn't have to grow up terrified. He wishes Bev had a better dad and he wishes Eddie had a better mom and he wishes Mike didn't have to stay and he wishes Bill didn't lose Georgie and he wishes Stan didn't have to die and he wishes Ben didn't have to meet them by having an  _ H  _ carved into his stomach. He wishes they grew up comfortable, he wishes they were able to be kids, he wishes that he could lean over the empty seat (STAN’S DEAD STAN’S DEAD) and kiss Eddie right there. He wishes for a lot of things but nothing changes. 

Mike says, “what did I miss?”

And Eddie says, “not much,” because he’s always been the brave one. “I’ve been pretty fucking miserable.”

“Ditto,” Richie says, because fucking  _ yeah _ . Bev nods. Bill looks down at his plate and Ben’s mouth turns into a straight line. And Stan isn’t there.

“Richie, you’re a comedian now, yeah?” Mike asks, instead, because he’s Mike and even though they spent 27 years apart he hasn’t changed in that aspect. 

“Another tortured artist.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re an  _ artist _ ,” Eddie says. “Comedy isn’t an art.”

Ben and Bev both turn to each other as they laugh and Bill almost spits out his drink and Mike just looks a little sad. 

“Oh like your job is  _ so much better _ .”

“What do you do, Eddie?” Bev asks and Eddie rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his wine.

“I’m a risk analyser,” he says, and Richie already knows, because, hell, he’s done this three times now. 

“That’s, uh, that’s really interesting!” Richie says, and he gets a very confused look in return. “No! I’m not bullshitting you. What does that entail?”

He just can’t help it--not when Eddie turns to him and rolls his eyes. He could listen to Eddie talk about whatever for fucking  _ days _ and he wouldn’t get bored. He takes a shot. 

“So, I work for this big insurance firm,” he starts, and Richie’s about to make a joke before he decides that he should just listen. What if this is making things right? What if this is the little piece that makes everything go okay? “And, like, I evaluate and reduce risks for it, like, financially.”

“Do you like it?” That’s not what he meant to ask, but Bill and Mike are talking quietly between themselves and Ben and Bev are arm wrestling but it spilled out of him. 

Eddie looks at him like he can read is mind for a second. “No,” he says, “do you like being a comedian?”

“I don’t write my own shit.”

“I  _ knew  _ it! I fucking knew it!”

“You watched my stuff?”

“Yeah,” he says, like he didn't just make Richie malfunction. “It was pretty shit. You’re funnier than that.”

He forgot how easy it was with Eddie. How he wants to admit everything he’s ever thought, but he’s been pining for, like, forty years. So he bites his tongue. “I vomited when Mike called me.”

“Are you sick? Do you need me to drive you somewhere?”

He thinks about the way his forehead hit the steering wheel and how Eddie yelled and he doesn’t want to get in a car ever again, suddenly. “I’m fine. I just remembered the--the fucking-- _ clown _ .”

“Oh,” Eddie says, and then, “ _ shit _ .”

Before he can talk himself out of it, he puts his hand on Eddie’s elbow. 27 years and nothing has changed except Eddie has a wife and Bev has a husband and they’re all  _ old  _ and sad and Stan’s dead. “Oh shit, indeed, Eds.”

Mike looks between them. “He remembered?”

“The fucking clown,” is all he says. Pincers through chests and blood on chins and bathroom floors. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry 4 no stan :(


	5. plum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two conversations in two different times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two (??) months later i’m back and i don’t capitalize anything srry :) also probably totally different writing lmao idk

eddie stares at him. “you’re joking.”

”i’ve never been more serious,” richie says, emphatic. 

“you’re wearing hot dog socks,” stan says, once of his boring Bird Books in hand. richie stands there, five dollars in his hand and glasses smudged. ben climbs down, sits down on the bean bag, and looks very, very confused 

“those things literally sound like they’re radioactive.”

”if they sell them at a drug store, they’re probably not radioactive, ed’s,” he says. he is so fucking serious. “you know what is radioactive? your moms sweet sweet-“

”beep beep, loser,” stan says, chucking the book at him. 

“that’s not my name. and who fucking knows what’s in them.”

ben looks on helplessly. “what?”

”they’re edible bubbles. nothing too bad.” 

“edible what?” 

eddie sighs, I Am Going To Kill You, Richie, “rich says we should buy edible bubbles—which are probably terrible for you, not to mention disgusting.”

richie nods solemnly. “i’m a bad influence, ben, his mother said so herself.”

“she’s not right about a lot of things,” stan says, laying down on the floor and staring at the beams of the ceiling in a very stan way, “and that’s one of them.”

”are you saying i’m a good influence?” richie says, and eddie shakes his head like they’re putting him through something terrible. “am i not rebellious enough?”

”you make dirty jokes. so?”

”i am corrupting you, urine. that’s why you don’t see my evil.”

eddie laughs. “you’re as evil as a fucking stump.”

”what does that even mean?” ben says.

“hell if i know.” eddie swings himself onto the hammock. “but we’re not getting edible bubbles.”

”give me one reason why we shouldn’t,” richie says. 

“they’re bad for you.”

”and?”

”fucking fine,” eddie says, glaring at him. richie looks extremely pleased with himself. “if you’re gonna be like this about it.”

stan heaves himself up off the floor. “let’s go get poisoned!”

richie and him high five. “fuck yeah!”

”i hate you both,” eddie says. he gets up anyway. 

“alrighty, haystack, are ya coming?”

”i—yeah. sure.”

a conversation that follows:

”i cannot believe we spent two hours in that parking lot.” sneakers on the blacktop. 

“see, eds, you didn’t die.”

”they didn’t even taste like coke.”

”staniel, coke doesn’t taste like coke.”

”what does that even mean?”

”you’ll see.”

“the fucking clown.”

stans seat is empty and eddie looks terrified. the ugly part of richie, the part that can’t stop wanting, reaches out and touches his wrist. if you pressed your nails to richie’s arm he would weep plum juice, skin fragile. he thinks, God, do what You fucking want. he thinks, stan, i love you. he thinks, fuck of all this. he wants to leave but he can’t because that wouldn’t be Making Things Right. he thinks of the mourning slant of mikes shoulders. he thinks of the way bevs eyes dart around the room. he thinks of the way eddie looks at him, the part of him that is eternally 13 and terrified. “we should,” he says, thinking of the fortune cookies, “get the fuck out of here.”

mike nods in a way that is Serious. 

richie thinks, i would die for you, thinks, maybe i already have. he thinks of his mother and shudders. 

they stand in the parking lot. his hands are limp at his sides and eddie gives him a look he can’t quite read. he wants, selfishly, to kiss him. he wants to have fucking kids and buy a house and file their taxes. he thinks of his house in LA, big and empty, because he is greedy and he is wanting and he caves under pressure. “what do we do, mike?” bill says, because he is bill. 

“we fight it.”

bills eyebrows draw together like he realized something. nods. he is bill and he is Good. ben looks at bev and then down at the pavement and at bev again. 

richie looks around. “then let’s go fight it.”

”there’s—we need—tokens,” mike says. richie thinks of leaving and feels the impact of the windshield hitting his forehead, the screech of tires and the way eddie called his name. 

“it won’t work.”

mike and him Look at each other, and he thinks he should look away. 

“stan,” beverly says. 

“stan died,” richie says. 

they all look at him and he wishes that the pavement would cave in under him. a car starts and drives past them. it is derry and derry is dead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it’s short i wrote this in 20 min when i remembered i have to write if i wanted this to exist haha. maybe more coming soon. i’ll probably see y’all in a couple months!! love u all ty 4 reading !!!!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short ahaha. dunno if i'll continue to post this :( maybe i'll keep it up but idk. love yall lmao.

often, richie wonders what older stan was like. he swears he sees him backing out of the parking lot while bev called patty, staring at him sorrily. _you didnt need to do this **,**_ richie thinks, _it would be easier to fight him with you there, dipshit._ a part of him, even though he'll never admit it, is angry at stan. for backing out of his promise. he thinks of stan in the temple, of stan staring at the vomit on the bedroom floor of his tourbus. he thinks of stan at 13, giving ben his homework, to copy, thinks of stan at 15, siting on his porch and handing richie a joint without thinking. he wonders if the stan inbetween derry's smoked. he wondered what he was like in college. he misses him so much an ugly thing twists in his chest. 

the stan that richie got to know was the fucking best, and now he isn't even alive. he throws his phone on the pavement and watches the screen split down the middle. eddie looks at him and the down at the phone. "kobe," he says, weakly. 

ben starts to laugh and covers it unconvincingly with a cough. bev looks at him in a way that richie was never able to read, but somewhere akin to love. when he was 16, ben showed up on his roof unannounced and sat beside him. ben was never complicit in his misery like richie was, even if he was just as miserable as the rest of them. once, after what seemed like forever, he held out his hand and richie took it. they sat like that. richie walked him home. he wants to hug ben or thank him or something, only 20 years late. mike stares at the phone on the ground. 

eddie, now, puts a hand on richies shoulder. bev picks the phone up, and says, "honey." mike looks at him a bit more. 

"what did you say, about the ritual not working?"

"we just," richie says, and thinks of the blood dripping down eddie's chin, the way stan's voice sounded like it was under water, "need to make It small."

"but--the tribe--they--it was supposed to _work_ like it _was supposed to,_ " mike says. "how do you know?"

richie stares at him, and then looks to bev. "i saw it."

bill stares. "fuck this."

bev looks alarmed. "what?" 

"fuck this," he says again. "i'm sorry, mike, i just--i don't want to die. i'm shooting a movie and--"

"im sure that's going real well," richie says, before he can stop himself, because he is once again eternally 13. dead things don't stay dead in derry. it's an old bruise, between him and bill, _eddie could've died, man!_ now they're both old and they both have lives they have no point in returning to. 

"fuck you, man." 

richie puts his hands up. "im just trying to add levity to this shit, dude." he feels sick to his stomach. bill, for his part, looks hurt. eddie's hand returns to his shoulder. 

"bill," bev says, "if we don't fight It, we'll all die."

"and we'll die if we do it, too."

richie's fucking seen it all. "no, we won't. one of us has a chance of dying. like, a bigger chance. but we won't all die."

"what the fuck do you two know that we don't."

"Deadlights," they both say, and turn to each other. richie is supposed to Make It Right and he sees bev hanging in the air, 13 and scared and eyes a bright white, and he feels the enormity of the Deadlights weighing inside him, something poisonous in his chest. if the children don't grow up, he thinks, solemnly, and wonders if there is a god. poor patty. 

mike looks utterly lost. 

somehow, they end up in the sewers again. richie and eddie look at each other as they treck through the grey water, locking eyes for a fraction longer than they should. guiltily, richie thinks he looks handsome. mike and bill lead the way. fuck you, turtle! he feels like shouting. just as well. 

he is seventeen and driving away in his dad's old 1990 camero, and he thinks, miserable, _i know it's over,_ by the smiths. over, over, over. he sees eddie and stan and bill standing on his porch, waving. ben left a month earlier. he called bev, but she didn't pick up. he hates portland just as much as he hates derry, and he is driving to the airport, where his dad is waiting. he hates this. he wants to leave but not without them. he thinks of how shitty his teenage years were, and thinks, _is this the fucking deck i deserved_ and decides that, yes, it was. 

but now he's 40 and tired and wading through disguting water and everything is just as different as it is the same. he thinks about how he is fragile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to look up how expensive 1990's cameros were 4 this :///


End file.
